SnoValuation is a professional valuation firm specializing in appraisal, economic and financial consulting services to the ski industry. Clients typically include ski resort owners, operators, developers and/or partners, potential buyers and various lending institutions. The use of our work is typically for lending purposes, though we are often called upon for estate planning purposes, valuation of partnership interests, property tax appeals, feasibility analyses, transaction planning, as an expert witness in litigation assignments and as a consultant for things both imaginable and unimaginable. Additionally, we are often asked to appraise land slated for ski resort expansion and/or redevelopment for use as residential and/or skier service facilities.

A ski resort appraisal is complex and involves a number of integral operating components working together within a symbiotic framework that defines the resort. Ski resorts are all unique and immovable upon which the principle of substitution does not typically apply. Their inherent strengths and weaknesses must be recognized, analyzed, understood and gauged within the competitive, economic and natural climates in which they are fixed. This can only be done competently through many years of experience and observation. Since 2001, SnoValuation’s principal, Brandon Hawks, MAI, has personally performed nearly 200 ski resort appraisal and consulting assignments.